Commerce Min expresses concern over lack of trade data

Minister of state (independent charge) for commerce and industry Nirmala Sitharaman ton Thursday expressed serious concerns over lack of maintaining robust data on export and import of items from the country.

Sitharaman even hinted at the free trade agreement and other such bilateral deals entered by India with partner countries and how Indian exporters are getting impacted due to absence of proper data.

Highlighting the recent tensions among the rubber producers in Kerala, she said this is happening mainly because there is no data to support how much rubber import is taking place in the region.

Kerala government has urged the Centre to consider Rubber Board’s data to get a proper estimate on the level of rubber imports. Its chief minister Oomen Chandy has urged the government to increase the existing 20 per cent import duty on natural rubber in the wake of falling prices of the commodity.

She was speaking at a conference on Empirical Issues in International Trade and Finance organized by the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT).

Reiterating her government’s push for boosting manufacturing growth in the country she said it is turning out to be a huge success.

“Make in India programme has received a positive response … It will take care of socio-economic problems. Manufacturing sector has stagnated at 16 per cent of GDP,” she said.

The National Manufacturing Policy has set an objective to increase the share of manufacturing sector in GDP to 25 per cent by 2020.